hartvshotWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: hart is a noun, hot is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“hart” is a noun and “hot” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#6,692
“hart” frequency rank
#711
“hot” frequency rank
7403
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature hart hot
Definition A male deer, especially the male of the red deer after his fifth year. Relating to heat and conditions which produce it.

Where the eye mixes hart and hot

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 2 letters in sequence.

4 ch
hart
3 ch
hot

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: hart is /hɑːt/ while hot is /hɒt/. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 7403, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

hart is recorded at frequency rank #6,692, classified as anoun, pronounced /hɑːt/. hot is at rank #711, tagged as anadj, pronounced /hɒt/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 7403, this pair ranks #507,254 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of hart vs hot

Shared letters: ht. Private to "hart": ar. Private to "hot": o.

"hart" · 4 letters · shape CVCC  ·  "hot" · 3 letters · shape CVC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • hartahrt · harrt · hartt · hatr · hhart · hrat

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "hart" and "hot" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "hart" is a noun and "hot" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Which is more common, "hart" or "hot"?
"hot" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #711 in our English list, against #6,692 for "hart". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list